Okay, and?

I’ve read comic books as long as I’ve been able to read, but I’d never be allowed to call myself a “comic book geek”, because the Anglo-American super hero thing remains terra incognita for me, at least for large parts. Whenever I think of changing this, the few decades worth of “canon” seems daunting. Where to even start getting to know these characters and their stories?

But last week in the library I decided to just do it: pick a Batman book and read it, previous canon and my familiarity with it be damned. I supposed it would be like jumping into watch a long-running soap. At first you’re like WTF am I watching right now, but then you start realizing who’s whose evil twin, who slept with their step-son and so on. And it all starts to make some kind of sense. Right?

Wrong. After finishing The Court of Owls I very much had that WTF did I just read feeling. It’s not that I hated it, but I did not get it. The reading experience wasn’t unpleasant, but what was the point? The mystery seemed perfunctory, and I don’t think much of Batman’s detective skills based on this. Then you get some violence and then it’s over. Maybe I would have reacted differently if I had some kind of emotional connection to Bruce Wayne and his super angsty angst. Probably, even. But I don’t.

In any case, the art is atmospheric, and cool in that dark Gothic way. But I hate the way Batman’s body is drawn. I get that the ridiculously muscular build is a genre convention, and you can as much do away with it as you can have a soap opera without an evil temptress. I don’t care. I still hate it, because it looks stupid.

I nevertheless plan on reading the next part, City of Owls, to see if it’ll give me a better understanding of Batman.

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Comments

Aw, I’m sorry that you disliked it! I found Batman easy to pick up because his mythology was so pervasive in pop culture and I really enjoyed court of owls; I always liked exploring the human emotions and the human breaking points. Batman is so vulnerable; a reason why he doesn’t do much detective work, most of his focus is on his childhood and his own inner traumas – which is my favorite part of the modern Batman.

“I found Batman easy to pick up because his mythology was so pervasive in pop culture.”

I thought it would help, and to an extent it did, like knowing why his parents are a big deal, who the hell some of the characters are and so on. But there were also things that left me completely puzzled. Like why should we care about the not-Robin’s distant ancestors?

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